RAMageddon

The impact of this greedy swoop for AI supremacy and locking your tech bro rivals out of the growth game had already turned the world of high-end PC gaming upside down. In under six months, the price of a single 16GB DDR 5 ram stick - have risen an eye watering 466% and that’s before we look at GPUs. The return on investment seen from simple PC parts currently shames silver, gold and the world’s finest champagne.

The rise in component cost, and the potential for the handful of memory makers to sell all of their stock at an elevated price to one buyer is clearly quite appealing - and has locked consumers, and even the world’s largest tech companies out. Nvidia - creators of gaming’s most popular GPUs have told retailers not to expect a next-gen graphics card in 2026 because it’s focusing on AI cards, while simultaneously re-releasing some of its older models. The rumour mill also suggests that Valve have delayed its own mid-powered Steam Machine due to shortages of memory and SSD storage, while Sony are considering pushing PlayStation 6 as far out as 2029 due to the lack of available capacity to create the high-end memory it would need for the new console.

It’s possible to look at these delays and paint a very negative picture of what’s ahead, against the backdrop of current transformation and challenges within the games industry - but as I’ve suggested in previous columns - just because high-end systems and components are available - it doesn’t mean most gamers are actually using them. One look at the statistics in Steam as I write this shows that the most popular GPU in use across the whole platform is Nvidia’s RTX3060 - a card released some five years ago this week.

With this in mind, maybe it’s time for both developers and gamers to hunker down, and let game creators REALLY get to grips with current hardware and available tools and engines, before getting overly hyped about what’s next? The excellent Digital Foundry team regularly cover fan developed projects for long forgotten hardware that demonstrates the adage that there’s plenty of juice left in the fruit - just a couple of weeks ago, a single-developer had got the modern graphics technique of raytracing running on a 31-year old Sega Saturn console - older than many of you reading this column.

In a recent chat with a developer - I was told that a slower transition to new hardware would be just the opportunity they and others needed to do more with what they’ve currently got, both in the sense of getting more from existing tools and working smartly, before transitioning onto the next big thing. With Grand Theft Auto 6 seemingly being designed very much with the current generation of systems in mind before scaling onto whatever’s next, let’s hope we’ve got plenty more to enjoy. Until then - perhaps it’s time to get some of these “retired” PC bits in the cupboard on eBay?!